Sunday, 28 June 2009

Bird trip to Arne, Dorset

Today I went on a birding trip with my local bird club (Bristol Ornithological Club) down on the south coast of England to the RSPBs (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) reserve at Arne. This is an area of Heathland which overlooks Poole Harbour. This is the first of three posts on this day trip to Arne and I'll concentrate the first post on this superb Sandwich Tern which was fishing right in front of us. All of these photos are cropped. I would love to have been closer to the bird, but you cant always get what you want! (-: Click to enlarge.The Sandwich Tern is a large Tern with a distinctive long black bill with a yellow tip (seen here quite well against the grass background). It has a much shorter forked tail than other Terns and in flight seems quite chunky and large headed.It dived several times in front of us and the following photos are the best mix I could get from several dives.

The dark wedges in the wing in this shot below show quite a bit of wear in the feathers. If it were a fresh summer bird the wedges would be more indistinct.

This bird below is showing the beginnings of its white winter forehead coming in.

Jenny the shots of the tern in the dive and back into take-off are awesome beautiful shots! Very interesting. At the risk of sounding totally stupid what makes up the pretty purple meadow/field? Looking forward to the next post...

I thoroughly enjoyed this series of photos, and I never knew until I read this that one could click on the photo for a full size version. That enhances the experience immensely. Thanks for taking me along.

Hi Mary, it was lovely to watch it fishing over about a period of 10 minutes on and off. My highlight of the day I think.

Hi Julie, that's very nice of you to say so. Glad you're enjoying it.

Hi RR, the purple flowering is the Heather on the Heathland there. Quite a sight....

Hi Old Grey Egg, thanks for dropping in on my blog I'm glad you liked it. I found out from Eve at Sunnysideup blog that if you put your photos in backwards (ie: last first) that is when the photos can be clicked on to enlarge them.

Hi Evie, will try and post tonight, if not then tomorrow evening after work.

Hi Jenny,This is a gorgeous series of flying and fishing shots. I've been trying to do that with our arctic tern, but first they are too small and then so quick to change direction and go fishing that I never managed. Well done this is a very beautiful set of pictures.